Truth Unleashed
by rko-luver
Summary: Harry finds a parchment in Dumbledore's office after the final battle on which Snape detailed the true sequence of events between him, Lily, and James. What if James Potter wasn't so noble? What if in fact, he was the darkest of all?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters, terms, and concepts belong to J.K. Rowling

Across time and distance, wars expose the true characters of men. All involved tested by the constant dichotomy, victims are killers, friends are enemies, triumph holds with tragedy. This was never more true than in the aftermath of one of the greatest wars of wizarding history. Voldemort had been defeated, his Death Eaters scattered to the wind, the Elder Wand destroyed. Harry Potter had succeeded, and yet, a sense of despair and loss thickened the air around what survived of Hogwarts castle. Students, teachers, parents, all mourning for themselves and others, forced to ask themselves what it was they were supposed to do now. When Voldemort had been alive, there was a mission, a purpose, and now there was nothing but death and rubble, a world in shambles.

Some were able to recover quickly from this loss of purpose. Madame Pomfrey, Professor Slughorn, and Professor Sprout were kept busy by the constant calls of the injured who had been moved en masse to the great hall. Though mediwitches arrived every day from St. Mungo's to take the mutilated and maimed to the hospital facilities, there were still hundreds of sick and dying in need of potions and remedies. Professor McGonagall and the rest of the teachers not assisting in the great hall began the laborious task to moving rubble and searching for the missing from both sides. Most of the students well enough to travel were sent home to their families, some of the older ones remaining to assist their professors.

Harry Potter was not so lucky. His life in the wizarding world had revolved around Voldemort, and now that he was dead, he felt a greater loss of purpose and meaning than any other witch or wizard. He had no skills in healing like Hermione, no knowledge of plants like Neville, no family to comfort like Ron, he had nothing. Though he knew he should be happy, that he should feel at ease, he was only confused. So much had changed, and no one even knew. Most assumed his melancholy was due to the loss of Order members and thought it best to leave him alone. No one suspected that everything he had known about the man, who had been the closest thing to a father he had ever known, had changed. Dumbledore was no longer the man who saved Harry, who did everything in the name of love and righteousness. He was the man who had knowingly sent Harry to die, who had manipulated Snape's love for his mother. Snape was not the evil heartless monster that Harry had believed, but in fact only wanted to keep Harry and his mother safe. It was all so wrong, so distorted.

He had tried to talk to Hermione and Ron about it, but they were so wrapped up in their new found love that they did not want to spend very much time discussing events nearly twenty years past. Everyone directly involved in his parents' deaths was either dead or gone; there was no one to help him make sense of this. So much of it didn't add up. Why had his father changed from bully to freedom fighter? Why had his mother cut off contact with her best friend after one cruel comment? It made no sense, and his mind was wracked with confusion. In the days and weeks following Voldemort's death Harry had taken to going up to Dumbledore's old office. It wasn't entirely quiet, with portraits of old headmasters constantly asking what had happen and arguing with each other. At first, Harry would just sit beside the window overlooking the grounds, trying to think about what had gone on. As days passed, he learned how to place his own thoughts in the pensieve in an attempt to clear his mind. He watched and re-watched Snape's memories, trying to piece together some sort of sequence of events.

He was using the pensieve on the night he found it. He had just pulled his head from the gaseous pool of thoughts, frustrated with himself, with Dumbledore. In a fit of anger he slammed his fist against the stone pedestal on which the pensieve rested, when he heard a small clunk. Harry looked around, searching the floor for any fallen objects. Finding nothing he shook his head and turned from the pensieve, which under normal circumstances would cause the basin to retreat back into its cupboard. This time, the pensieve did not move. Harry raised an eyebrow and knelt in front of the basin, looking to see if something was blocking its path. To the left of the basin, tucked between it and the wall, were several rolls of parchment.

Harry reached, pulling the parchment from its resting place, moving to sit at Dumbledore's desk as he untied the twine holding the rolls together. He chose one and unrolled it. At the top was a small "3", and below that, feet of parchment full of neat scrawl. Snape's handwriting. Harry picked through the rolls, finding the one with the number "1", and began to read.

_My name is Severus Snape, former potions master and current Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The world believes me to be a dark wizard, a murderer. They are wrong. I loathe the dark arts more than many alive today, for I have seen what they can do. I wish to tell that story, my story, in hopes that someday, people will understand. _

_ No doubt you have heard of Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived, and who will finally kill Voldemort. He is the son of Lily Evans and James Potter, the love of my life, and my fiercest enemy, and holder of the best-kept secret in wizarding history. James Potter was more than just the father of Harry Potter. He was a spy for the D6ark Lord._


	2. Chapter 2

Harry shook his head in disbelief, there was no way his father had been a servant of Voldemort, a spy. Snape had to be lying, but why? What did Snape have to gain from lying to a stranger? He had to keep reading.

_I will start from the beginning. I met Lily Evans when we were children, and I knew even then that she was special. She had been playing at the neighborhood park with her ignorant sister, Petunia. From the moment Petunia and I set eyes on one another we knew that we despised the other. Petunia had been whining and complaining about Lily being different, about her using magic. I am a half-blood wizard, and could recognize from the magic I had seen my mother perform that Lily was a witch. From the day I approached them on that playground, to the day I draw my last breath on this wretched Earth, Lily has been my only, my dearest, friend. At first I think it was curiosity that drew her to me, curiosity about her abilities and about the magical world. She is muggle-born, and therefore knew nothing of what her powers meant. That day, when learned that she was not a freak as her sister had told her, when she saw that I too could perform acts muggles could not explain, she looked at me with what I could only describe as friendship. In those green eyes I saw, for the first time in my life, someone who understood what it was like, to be feared, disliked, alone. I think I loved her from that day all those years ago._

_ When we received our Hogwarts letters we were both excited, but underneath I admit now that I was afraid. What if we arrived at Hogwarts and she no longer desired my company? What if we were sorted into other houses and she never spoke to me again? The night of our sorting I was as nervous as the rest of the students, but not about my own placement, about hers. When she was sorted into Gryffindor my heart sank, for I knew that my fate likely resided in Slytherin or Ravenclaw. When she sat at the Gryffindor table I saw a boy our age introduce himself, and I thought then that my friend was gone. I have learned since that that boy was James Potter. When I was sorted into Slytherin and trudged my way to their table, I saw Lily smile to me and wave, much to James' chagrin, and my heart lightened. _

_ I wish I had known then what James was; I'd have cursed him into oblivion that very night. It started as childish taunting. James and his friends took particular pleasure in torturing me, in class, the hallways, meals, it never seemed to end. The only solace I had was Lily. She hated James as much as I did, and when she saw him attacking me, she would always stand in my defense, even when the rest of our peers only laughed. No one understood why the popular Gryffindor girl was friends with the weird Slytherin boy. I didn't need them to understand, I didn't need their approval, she was all I needed. At first it seemed as if James hated Lily as much as she hated him, but as weeks went on, that changed. He made excuses to talk to her, to approach her, much to her, and my, irritation. I admit that I would taunt James, that I would purposely walk up to talk to her when I saw that he was about to corner her. I knew it meant a harsher taunting session later, but it was worth it. She noticed of course, and though she was grateful, she was worried for me. We started exchanging letters after classes by way of my young owl Artemis. I had one of the few Slytherin dormitory rooms that had a small window, barely big enough for the owl to slip through. We talked about anything, everything. Many of the other Slytherin boys made fun of me, and would try to steal her letters, but I didn't care. All through our first year, even as James' torture sessions grew worse, I found solace in those letters. Sadly during later events I had to destroy them for fear that they would be discovered by the Dark Lord. _

_ Our second and third years passed relatively without incident. James' attempts to woo Lily intensified, as did her loathing of him, and therefore so did his bullying. Lily and I grew closer and I knew that I loved her. I did not admit this to her, for fear of rejection, but even then I think she had begun to have some feelings toward me beyond those of friendship. In our fourth year, I began activities that almost ended that forever. It was in my fourth year that I began to explore the dark arts. It started as research, purely academic. I did not tell Lily, I knew that she would not approve. I wish now that she had known, that she had stopped me, maybe things would have turned out differently. My research soon evolved into actions. Spells, potions, jinxes, I felt as if I had discovered a whole new world. It was Avery who found me one night in the restricted section of the library, and instead of turning me in, he smiled, and brought me back to the common room. It was from him, and several other Slytherin boys that I first heard of Voldemort. He was merely a rumor at that time, a whisper, a ghost. All we knew was that he was powerful, that he knew of dark magic, we thought that he could make us powerful. We were so naïve. _

_ I wish then that I had asked how these boys knew about Voldemort, maybe I would have been able to end the madness before any real damage done, but I was young, I was stupid. I learned years later that it was James who had first told the boys about Voldemort. They did not know it was him of course, even though they respected James as a fellow bully, he was still a Gryffindor and not to be trusted. James' mother was Dorea Potter, formerly known as Dorea Black. _


	3. Chapter 3

Harry attempted to think back to the Black family tree on the wall of Grimauld Place, to remember anyone named Dorea, but he couldn't. The tree had been so vast, so many people had been erased, it was near impossible to remember its entirety without hours of studying. Harry knew of course that almost all of the pure-blooded families were at some point related to each other, but his own grandmother a Black? Wouldn't Sirius have known? How could Sirius not have told him? All he felt was confusion, his mind consumed by questions.

_It is no surprise of course that Potter, as a pure-blood, is related to another prominent pure-blooded family. Dorea Black married Charlus Potter with the blessings of both families and Dorea kept close contact with her siblings throughout her life. One of these siblings is the grandfather of the infamous Sirius Black, making James and Sirius cousins. _

That explained why the Potter's were so willing to take Sirius in when he ran away from home, he was their nephew. But why hadn't anyone told him? Had his mother known? Did she ever suspect the truth? He stopped himself, startled. He was believing this, all he had was Snape's word, over all that he knew of his father. He felt the anger building inside him, and wanted to tear up the roll of parchment in front of him, but he had to know more. Harry began to unroll more of the parchment when he heard a knock on the door. Frantically he rolled up the parchment and hid all of the rolls in a desk drawer. "Um, yeah, come in."

Hermione tentatively opened the door sticking her head in. "Harry, there you are, we've been looking for you everywhere." She stepped into the office, giving him a quizzical look, and Harry knew she was going to want to know if he was okay, why he was up here. He wasn't entirely sure to the answers himself.

"Yeah sorry, came up here to clear my head a bit, guess I lost track of time. Did you need something?"

Hermione nodded, "Mr. Weasley had a bit of a fall while clearing some rubble, he's going to be okay, just needs a few potions, but Mrs. Weasley wanted to know if you could help them with the rubble, I would but I'm still so busy making potions."

"Of course, I'll be right down."

She looked at Harry oddly, as if she suspected something was wrong, that there was something he wasn't telling her, but she nodded and turned, walking back down the spiral staircase. Harry pulled the rolls of parchment back out of the drawer he had hastily shoved them in and looked at them, wondering what to do with them. Part of him told him to destroy them, throw them into a fire. He knew he couldn't. As much as he hated it, he was beginning to believe Snape. Finally he placed the parchments in a cabinet behind some knick knacks, and went down to assist the others clearing rubble.

When he and the others finished for the day nearly three hours later, he knew that he should go up to bed in what was left of the Gryffindor dormitory, but he found himself drawn back to Dumbledore's office. The whole time he had been helping the others; his mind had been at the top of that staircase, trying to find a way to get back to those rolls of parchment, to know more about his father. Once he was finally able to get away he had to consciously stop himself from running back to Dumbledore's office. When he finally reached the office and opened the cabinet to find the parchments untouched, an inexplicable sense of relief flushed him.

Removing them from their hiding place he sat in Dumbledore's chair, unrolling the first parchment and continuing to read.

_Being a prominent pure-blooded family, the Black's were one of the first approached by Voldemort in his early stages of power. I do not know when this occurred, only that it was some time before James' third year at Hogwarts. It was during the third year when several of the other Slytherin boys began whispering of a powerful dark wizard. We knew very little, most of it exaggerated, but even then some people stood out as darker than the others, more eager to gain power. Being only third years, we had not yet acquired the audacity to research dark magic, but even then the sense of adventure was almost palpable. I did not tell Lily of this, afraid that she would disapprove. I did not yet know of Voldemort's view of muggle-borns, though I suspect that some of the others did, I must admit, with the intensity of my curiosity I do not know if it would have made me stop. It is not that I have any aversion to muggle-borns, as proved by my intense love for Lily, but simply my thirst for power. I suppose Potter had some part of this, I wished nothing more than to see him destroyed. _

_As my interest in the dark arts deepened I began to not only research, but to brew potions and cast spells and curses. At first it was simple things, but as my third and fourth year progressed, so did my skills. Lily began to suspect, and I knew she would not understand that at some level, I was doing this for her. James' attention towards Lily had only intensified; I had become afraid for her safety. Though he had never hurt anyone other than me, I knew what he was capable of, and was terrified that he would snap if she continued to refuse him. _

This was the end of the first parchment, and as he reached the last line, he could only wonder, if maybe Snape was right.

A/N: for those of you that don't believe me on the Black/Potter family connection go to .com and go to the families section, if you click on Black you can see the whole Black family tree and see that I didn't just pull this out of thin air. I do not own that site or have any part in it, and give full credit to its proper owners.


	4. Author's note

Hello everyone, I am working on another chapter and hopefully it will be longer than the others. As much as I want to bring out the more vulnerable side of Snape I'm beginning to feel like I'm making him too soft. I will be fixing this in the next chapter which should be up in the next week or so. I'm also looking for a beta reader who I would also need to help me brainstorm a little. Please PM me if you're interested. Thank you all so much for your reviews!


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